Your Business Success Hinges on Selecting the Right Clients

As a business, choosing who to target and offer your services to can be a catalyst for success and there’s no underestimating how impactful this will be.

Who you target can frame your entire business, your entire business model, how you package up your services, your pricing, clarity on your marketing, not to mention your fulfilment, enjoyment and the feeling doing purposeful work gives you - so it’s important you choose wisely.

Choosing a niche however, has become equivalent to the “health” industry selling an infinite number of fad-diets, it’s messy. In this article my aim is to help businesses simplify who they target in a way that’s clear, concise and gets them moving in smarter, not harder ways.

While there are many elements I can share on this artform, I’ll share the meaty part of how I help service based businesses effectively target the right people which makes achieving their goals easier than ever, not to mention the positive snowball effect this key decision will have on the proceeding areas of your business.

Focus on your winners. Of all the people you could help, who are those that make it easy for you to do your BEST work with < these are who you focus on. Below I’ll help you further define this (I’ve provided an example through the lens of a marketing agency):

1. Who are the people you do the BEST work with? You might have an excellent client that comes to mind, what is it about working with them that makes producing your services top-notch??

E.g. A marketing agency might find their best clients already produce leads through social media (not as many as they’d like but they do get a fair amount), they also have a working funnel setup and consistently nurture their email database.

2. What is it about these people that make them ideal to work with? What else can you detail about this type of person or client that evidently makes them a clear winner for you to target?

E.g. For our marketing agency example, the business owner may be invested in the marketing, they are eager to participate, provide information and collateral where required (such as liaising with clients for video testimonials), but they leave the heavy lifting to the experts or those they’ve engaged - there’s a level of trust with those they partner with and this balance benefits the outcomes and results.

3. What is it specifically about them that allows you to do the best work? Where are they at in their journey, are they starting out or are they further along? Have they tried to use someone with your same services or is this the first time?

E.g. Throwing myself into this example as a business and marketing consultant, my ideal clients are not newbies, they’ve been in business for 10, 20, 30 years and have many runs on the board. I love working with those who’ve already built a great business and for one reason or another, they need personalised support to grow and strengthen their business in today’s world. A person who’s been in business for 1-2 years is very different from someone who’s been in business for decades.

4. What are the obvious qualifiers that make them different from a non-ideal client? Every business will have their unique qualifiers that are dependent on the services you provide. I’ll share a few in the examples below:

• E.g. a marketing agency may want clients who already produce 10 qualified leads per month as it shows they’ve got a functioning system and validated offer.
• E.g. a branding designer may want to focus on those who are undertaking a rebrand rather than those who are having their first branding work done.
• E.g. an email marketer may want their clients to have a database of 10,000 subscribers as well as a working lead source for growing their list.
• E.g. an accountant may only want to work with businesses who have 5+ staff, a dedicated bookkeeper and want to sit down for quarterly reviews and forecast meetings.

A great piece of information to keep in mind as you go through this exercise is the contrast the opposite will provide. Say you’re reflecting on who you do your best work with, you might come up with the answer/s by looking at the contrary of who makes it difficult for you to do your best work with?

It’s easy for me to say no to new entrepreneurs and businesses because I choose to work with those who have an established business, have overcome the initial hurdles and already have a working business in many regards - this client however would be perfect for someone else who focuses on this category of client.

So, what do you do with all this information once you have your answers?

You get to work on building this audience, speaking to this segment more specifically and generating these more-ideal-clients. In my next article I’ll share how to translate the clarity of your ideal client into clear and effective marketing that attracts the right people to your business.

? I'm Shannon Stone , award-winning business & marketing consultant and I specialise in helping service based businesses strengthen their sales, enhance their team and better manage their business.

?? Connect with me on LinkedIn for more content to help you grow your service based business.